I listened to the final rant of Jon Stewart (BIG CAUTION this show is from Cable and for Adults Only, just like Risk Management) and came away with inspiration for a post, which I've edited a bit to remove the phrases not applicable here.
Pseudoscience and science – the former is an belief based on logical fallacies that is supported by some people who may seem rational; the latter is an actual rational methodology to discover facts about the natural universe. The former is utter bullshit. And the latter is fact. Deal with it. And an almost literal translation of Jon Stewart's last broadcast.
Bullshit Is everywhere. There is very little that you will encounter in life that has not been, in some ways, infused with bullshit.
Not all of it bad. Your general, day-to-day, organic free-range bullshit is often necessary. That kind of bullshit in many ways provides important social-contract fertilizer. It keeps people from making each other cry all day.
But then there’s the more pernicious bullshit–your premeditated, institutional bullshit, designed to obscure and distract. Designed by whom? The bashitocracy.
It comes in three basic flavors. One, making bad things sound like good things. “estimates are the smell of dysfunction, so let's not estimate and the dysfunction will disappear." Because "we're just developers who can't even make high level estimates how much it will cost and we work for bonehead managers who can't tell the difference between a good estimate and a bad estimate," doesn't have the same ring.
"Estimates inhibit creativity, restrict our ability to be flexible, and the other restrictions to our creativity" sounds better than "we have no clue what we're doing, how much it will cost, or when we'll be done, so juts give us the money so we can start spending," So whenever something’s been titled Pure Agile, or 10X improvement in productivity, searching for the Magic take a good long sniff. Chances are it’s been manufactured in a facility that may contain traces of bullshit
Number two. Hiding the bad things under mountains of bullshit Complexity. You know, I would love to download Drizzy’s latest Meek Mill diss. But I’m not really interested right now in reading Tolstoy’s iTunes agreement. So I’ll just click agree, even if it grants Apple prima note with my spouse. This comes to the discussion of Value at Risk and what are estimates for other than to protect Value at Risk. And the willful ignorance of how every business works projects with probabilistic events and statistical variance and how those uncertainties must be dealt with for the business to have any hope of surviving .
And finally, finally, it’s the bullshit of infinite possibility. The Unicorn approach to solving hard problems, by claiming all big problems can be broken down into little problems, These bullshitters cover their unwillingness to act under the guise of unending inquiry. We can’t do anything because we can't possibly know anything in the presence of uncertainty. We cannot take action to improve that knowledge until everyone in the world agrees we're not headed down the slippery slope of governance of how we spend other people's money. Until then, I say it leads to controversy.
Now, the good news is this. Bullshitters have gotten pretty lazy. And their work is easily detected. And looking for it is kind of a pleasant way to pass the time.
So when you encounter some claim - estimates are the smell of dysfunction. Or the latest There are countless good ways to make decisions: Estimates is one. Then ask for evidence. Ask for working examples that can be tested against some set of principles. Not just personal anecdotes. If there are no principles, no testable evidence, then ...
The best defense against bullshit is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something.
